


Stitched Back

by hailtherandom



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood Transfusions, Blood and Injury, Clint and Natasha Look Out For Each Other, F/M, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Needles, Post-Mission, Showers, Stitches, safe houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailtherandom/pseuds/hailtherandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Things don’t always go wrong.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>But when they do, they go <b>very</b> wrong.</i>
</p><p>Clint is pretty beat up after a mission. Natasha takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitched Back

**Author's Note:**

> This was for a prompt on tumblr but I liked it enough that I decided to make it its own work.
> 
> If you're squicked or triggered by blood, needles, or IV lines, maybe give this one a pass.
> 
> Can be read as platonic or shippy, your call.
> 
> Forgive the title. I hate titling things. I hate it so much.

Things don’t always go wrong.

But when they do, they go  _very_  wrong.

Clint is barely upright by the time they make it to the safe house - he’s leaning so heavily on Natasha’s shoulder that she may as well be carrying him, fumbling with the keys while trying not to just drop him on the front porch. He supports himself against the wall for just long enough for her to push the door open and then he’s keeling back into her, mumbling incoherently as she moves them toward the bathroom. 

Natasha sits Clint down on the toilet lid, then turns the shower on as hot as it goes. Clint watches her through half-lidded eyes, pupils dilated far beyond their usual size. His head lolls to the side as she checks his pulse and she rights it again, pulling his lower eyelids down to check for cognizance. “Clint? You still with me?”

"Mhmmm," Clint hums. “‘m here, ‘Tsha."

"Tell me what hurts."

"Be easier t’ tell you what doesn’t," he slurs.

Natasha sighs and rubs one hand through her hair. “Can you get undressed? I need to check you out.”

Clint just gazes up at her, blinking slowly, and Natasha’s sighs in frustration. “Okay, got it. Just stay awake for me.” She drops down on one knee and starts undoing buckles and unzipping zippers to the tune of the shower’s spray hitting the tile floor. She pushes his vest off of his shoulders and tugs his undershirt over his head and winces - half the skin is bruised so dark it’s red inside the purple; the other half is paling around a large gash. She presses her fingers gently against the wound and Clint sucks in a sharp breath, his body rolling away from the touch. “Are you dizzy?”

“‘s spinning,” he mumbles. "Room's all wavy." 

"Okay, that’s okay. There’re supplies in here somewhere." Natasha pushes herself upright and grimaces. "Stay here, okay?"

"Where else would I go?" She can almost hear the grin in his voice, cracked with blood and hazy with pain but undeniably Clint Barton.

The supply room had been set up prior to their mission and thankfully contains a couple of blood bags each in both of their types on ice. Natasha briefly wonders as she unwinds IV tubing if the powers that be who assigned Strike Team Delta knew what a bloodbath it would be. She’s lost maybe a pint herself through various cuts and wounds, but Clint was dripping blood in the field and the wound is still open now - she estimates he’s lost at least two. Maybe more. 

She grabs a pack of needles and attaches one to the end of the tube, then clamps the other one to the blood bag, then grabs a tourniquet, a packet of alcohol wipes, and a stitching kit and returns to the bathroom. Clint’s head is lolling back against the wall but his eyes are still open, however hazy, so she counts that as a win.

"Make a fist for me," she orders and he does. She wraps the tourniquet twice around his arm and ties it off, then rips open the wipe and wipes down half of his forearm. He barely registers when she uncaps the needle, or when it disappears under his skin, or when Natasha ties the bag to the top of the shower stall and gravity starts to take effect. She works off his boots and his pants while the bag drains into him slowly, applies pressure to the gash in his side while he squirms weakly and whines and shrugs away from the sting of alcohol and the pinch of a surgical needle as she sews him back up again. His socks and underwear end up in the puddle of his own blood on the bathroom floor, his vest and undershirt in the sink, his pants folded up for a cushion for Natasha to kneel on as she scrapes blood off of his chest and his side and patiently waits for the color to come back into his face.

Once the bag empties completely, she presses the wipe back to the vein in his arm and slides the needle out. He flinches, and she decides that’s good; better, anyway, then him not noticing. “Can you sit up on your own?”

Clint nods, more falling forward than leaning forward, but he supports himself with elbows on his knees, head drooped forward.

"Okay, good." Natasha wipes her hands off on her catsuit, then looks around. The shower is still running - probably cold by now, but she doesn’t care, both of them are bloody and bruised and the idea of water running down her body is so appealing that she isn't going to bother waiting for it to heat up again. "Shower time."

"I’ll fall down," Clint says.

"I’ll catch you." He glances up and smiles faintly at her as she tugs down her zipper and kicks her suit off into the bedroom. Her underwear ends up with his socks, seeped in red, and she grimaces, but doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. For once in his life, Clint doesn’t make a comment as his eyes sweep over her naked body - he just holds out one arm and she ducks under it to help him up.

They stand together in the (mercifully still warm) shower - Clint leaning against the wall and Natasha meticulously washing every trail of blood from his body. The stitched wound leaks a little bit when she does over it with a washcloth, but it stops quickly enough and Clint doesn’t complain. She reaches up and cleans the blood from his hair and allows him to return the favor, carefully separating red from red until the water washing down the drain is no longer pink. 

She reaches out to turn the water off but he smacks her hand away. She looks up at him, and he looks so tired but the curve of his lips is genuine as he says, “Stay a bit.”

"It’s cold now," she counters, with no fire at all.

"Do you mind it?"

"No," Natasha decides. "I don’t."

She rests her forehead on his shoulder and traces her fingers around his stitches; they stay as they should, jagged from her hurry and her lack of recent practice but tight against the flesh and, most importantly, they hold him together.

"You should do that second bag," she murmurs.

"There’s two?"

"Four. Two each."

"Aww, ‘Tasha, and here I thought you were giving up yours for me." 

She smiles into his shoulder, then taps on his forehead with one finger. “You don’t take plus, idiot. Come on, let’s get you hooked up.”

She turns off the water and carefully towels him dry, then lays him out on the bed with three towels under him and a fresh IV line in his arm and watches him fall asleep to the half-full blood bag before she allows herself to do the same.


End file.
